


Today Feels Like Déjà Vu Too

by SunStoneSpark



Series: Eternity Passes Slowly For Those Left Behind [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Post-SPECTRE, set during NTTD - which is an amusing thing to say about a film that hasn't been released, the first NTTD trailer has ruined my life and now i must post angst, unrequited yearning mixed in with some convoluted stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:16:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22913098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunStoneSpark/pseuds/SunStoneSpark
Summary: Some might say it's impolite to go five years without letting your friends know you're alive.James Bond pays little attention to those formalities.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Series: Eternity Passes Slowly For Those Left Behind [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1646884
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	Today Feels Like Déjà Vu Too

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the lovely DiscoVampire for beta reading <3
> 
> Glass Animals' 'Your Love (Déjà Vu)' ended up being the background while I was writing (and title inspo) , I think the energies seep through...

Bond had walked into Q’s apartment like he’d never been gone.

“ _Hello Q, I’ve missed you.”_

The absolute bastard. The audacity to treat the place like his own.

“ _So you’re not dead.”_

Q’s own words rang hollow and empty in his skull during those quiet hours after Bond had left again. Of course he hadn’t been dead. Larger than life and always playing the victim, the entitled sufferer on the Quartermaster’s doorstep. Looped back around into that eternal repertoire of disappearance and reappearance like a dire magician’s only act.

It had impressed Q at first. It would’ve been hard for it not to. To build a reputation like that takes time, commitment, consistency. To have a successful work record like that requires a long chain of divine acts. And all legends get their roots somewhere.

But Q certainly hadn’t expected the bite in his tone when he saw Bond again. The gnawing bitterness that accompanied it. He certainly hadn’t expected the pang of something visceral in his gut. Sadness, he realised later. Grief, guilt, of a sort, had risen up, unrepentant and degrading. Romanticising the mortal only ever lead to regret.

It is a cruel thing to harbour malicious feelings. Especially if they’re harboured with good intent. Nobody ever wants to hope somebody dead, of course, but a Bond walking right back into MI6 means a Bond walking right back into work. Dangerous work which he’d lost his qualifications for years ago. A man without a happy ending. A man stuck in a loop, strung high and mighty by the malice of his own mind, setting him back again.

For a man so close to death, it never seemed to come for him. To see it with Bond was to watch a burning city from the safety of a nearby cliff. The embers would get close enough to scorch, but never kill. They had left their marks deeply enough. And one by one, they’re not so bad, but together? That is what lingers for Q, in those long office hours under those vibrant halogen lights.

Because Bond always came out of the jobs, didn’t he? He always would, and wasn't it mesmerising? To watch him on the other side of a screen, to whisper codes and secrets into a headset. To listen to his ridiculous jokes and provocative comments. Only to have Bond leave again, like he always did. Only to have him leave for five years, before walking back through the door again. He’d come and he’d go and he’d leave everyone in the dark, a phantom who dissipated at the first glimmer of the dawn.

But that was the joy of it all, and the sadness too. In practicality, flowery analogies and cosmic connections would never hold. But, oh, with Bond, to close your eyes and let the feeling of it sweep you away, the practicality never mattered.

Tomorrow would arrive, and Q would open the door again. Maybe he’d smile, with a deep insincerity to his words, or maybe he’d frown to mask how much it all meant to him.

At least for today, James Bond was alive.


End file.
